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Andrea Burgener Discusses Her Unconventional Career in the Restaurant Business

Andrea Burgener, author of Lampedusa Pie and owner of The Leopard restaurant in Melville, discussed her distinctly non-conformist career in the food industry with Matthew Burbidge.

Prior to The Leopard, Burgener owned Superbonbon and Deluxe and all three of her restaurants have offered something fun and adventurous. Of her quirky approach to food and dining Burgener says, “I make decisions like somebody in their own house … It’s not brain surgery; you’re just serving someone some supper.” She discusses working with Braam Kruger at the Kitchenboy restaurant in the mid-1990s and mentions roasting a liquorice allsorts studded lamb with him one day at his house.

Burbidge picks out some of the recipes he’s enjoyed from Lampedusa Pie, saying that “‘Potatoes cooked under a brick’ was a revelation”:

Food is an adventure for The Leopard’s Andrea Burgener, whose sense of fun shines through in her book, Lampedusa Pie.

Andrea Burgener is the enfant terrible of Johannesburg chefs. You won’t be pandered to at her restaurant, The Leopard, where you have to bring a doctor’s note if you want your salad dressing on the side.

“Don’t they trust us to dress a salad?” asks the ebullient Burgener, who has kindly agreed to cook something for me at her home out of her new cookbook Lampedusa Pie (Macmillan), out now.